Supporting refugee self-reliance in East, Horn and Great Lakes of Africa: The role of data

According to last month’s Global Trends: Forced Displacement in 2023, the East, Horn and Great Lakes of Africa region—or EHAGL, which includes Burundi, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda—is host to an estimated 5.2 million refugees and asylum-seekers (around 14% of the global total), far higher than the region’s share in global population (5%). The majority of these refugees and asylum seekers originate from Burundi, Eritrea, Somalia, South Sudan and Sudan. The region also hosts an estimated 16.7 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) mainly from Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and South Sudan (around 26% of the global total) and nearly 580,000 refugee returnees.

Progress has been made towards greater responsibility sharing and enhanced self-reliance for refugees and host communities. However, these efforts continue to be outpaced by growing needs, and more must be done to address the challenges facing forcibly displaced populations in the region.

Together, the most recent Fragility Forum and Global Refugee Forum raised many recommendations for action while World Refugee Day events shed light on approaches to boosting economic development for both refugees and host communities. In this blog post, we look at some trends in the EHAGL region, the potential for the right policies to support and bring about change, and the importance of socioeconomic data in making this possible.

Humanitarian needs in fragile and conflict settings are outpacing contributions

According to the OECD 2023 survey on financing for refugee situations, donors contributed US$2.7 billion towards hosting refugees in the EHAGL region in 2020-21, the most recent year for which comprehensive and comparable data are available. While significant, these resources are insufficient compared to the growing number of emergencies and rising needs.

The conflict in Sudan alone has led to the displacement of nearly 9 million people in the past year, making it the world's largest displacement crisis. At the same time, Official Development Assistance (ODA) to fragile contexts, including refugee situations, decreased by over 10% from 2020-2022, with increasingly large shares for in-donor refugee costs (domestic spending on refugee hosting by donors), largely due to the war in Ukraine.

Around 58% of the total ODA financing to refugee situations for the region was allocated for humanitarian purposes, followed by 33% for development and 4% for peace purposes (the rest is undefined), with shares ranging from mostly development (80% in Djibouti) to mostly humanitarian (85% in Burundi, 100% in Eritrea).

Emergency response accounted for over half (56%) of all funding, reflecting the trend toward short-term assistance (the remainder includes 10% for other multisector, 7% for governance and civil society and 3% for other social infrastructure). About 60% went to the top three hosting refugee countries in the region: Uganda (30%), Ethiopia (16%) and Sudan (13%). However, this did not translate into more money invested per refugee in the top hosting countries in the region—the ODA for refugee financing per refugee was less in the top hosting countries. Sudan is the most severely underfinanced among the top hosting countries, even before the crisis. 

To enhance and sustain self-reliance, start by reducing employment barriers—but don’t forget about education

The fact that assistance is limited shows how crucial it is to make sure that refugees and other displaced persons can fully engage in the social and economic aspects of host countries.

Here, harmonized data from the World Bank demonstrates the critical work still to be done. Forcibly displaced populations in all regions except Latin America are significantly less likely than host populations to be employed. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the employment gap between adult male refugees and host community members is 26 percentage points, while for adult females, it is 20 percentage points.

Addressing these gaps to enable refugee self-reliance requires a focus on enabling factors: rights to work, freedom of movement within the host country, and the ability to access national services, including education and health services. 

The 2023 UNHCR Global Survey on Livelihoods and Economic Inclusion shows the work that remains in this area—more than two-thirds of forcibly displaced populations in the EHAGL region face significant challenges in pursuing formal employment, opening financial accounts, and registering and accessing land for business. (Globally, there was small improvement from the 2021 version of the survey, with the number of refugees residing in countries that offer unrestricted access to formal employment increasing by 7%. Some gains in agricultural land rights have also been made.)

Common barriers to formal employment across countries include the necessity of permits, high unemployment rates in the host community, administrative and practical restrictions, the absence of freedom of movement, and the lack of knowledge about hiring refugees in the local labor market. Among women, child-caring and household responsibilities and gender norms constitute important barriers.

Additionally, both refugees and hosts face challenges in accessing education. According to the 2023 Global Compact Indicators Report, refugees can access school under the same conditions as nationals in 8 of 10 countries at the primary level and 7 of 10 for these countries for secondary. Together, the attendance rate of refugee and host community children aged 6-12 years is around 70% of all refugees. At the same time, fewer than 20% of adults have completed primary school. 

How should this inform the path forward—and how can quality data help?

The Fragility Forum 2024 raised critical themes of adaptation, resilience, and innovation across government, private sector, and civil society. Similarly, the Global Refugee Forum mobilized coalitions of actors to ensure that host communities get the support they need and that refugees can lead productive lives—over 1,600 pledges were made, including US$2.2 billion in government-led multi-partner commitments, with a significant share going towards economic inclusion, social protection, and education.

Quality data is crucial in guiding these investments, ensuring they target those most in need and facilitate longer-term development goals, and measuring their impacts. The most recent newsletter from the World Bank-UNHCR Joint Data Center on Forced Displacement details the many ways this transformation is taking shape across EHAGL: Uganda, Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia and Rwanda include, or plan to include, refugees into their national surveys and statistics. Burundi’s upcoming 2024 census will include refugees while South Sudan has introduced a first consolidated household survey – the Forced Displacement Survey – generating data that is vital to effectively meet the protection needs of the population, even in face of emergency. Facing drought and a rapidly evolving context, phone surveys in Somalia show increasing food insecurity and diminished livestock herds devastating the traditional pastoralist economy. The accompanying Digest further examines the impact of forced displacement on host communities, efforts to expand opportunities for forcibly displaced persons and areas in need of further research.

We must continue investing in data collection and analysis to support refugees and host communities in the EHAGL region.

By leveraging quality data and research, we can better understand the challenges facing forcibly displaced populations and host communities, target interventions effectively, and measure the impact of these efforts. Let us work together to ensure that refugees and host communities in the EHAGL region can have productive lives. 
 

The authors would like to thank Zara Sarzin for her insights.